Interview/Observation Paper
 

            My observation and interview took place at Risen Christ Elementary in Minneapolis with Ms. P and her second-grade classroom. I spent approximately thirty hours in the classroom, observing the classroom climate, the relationship between Ms. P and the students, the instructional techniques used, student motivation, and the type of classroom management. I also conducted an interview, approximately thirty minutes, with Ms. P about her philosophy regarding teaching decisions such as teaching techniques, how to address diverse learners, discipline and motivation.

            During my observations in the classroom, I mainly focused on how the students reacted with Ms. P and each other. The relationships that the students had with her and each other were based on the climate of the room. The classroom climate was very relaxed; the children were free to access all the different parts of the room (i.e. computer, books, individual tables, etc.), and this proved to allow them to work at their own pace. The feeling I received in the classroom was very warm and inviting. The room was very colorful with posters and pictures on the wall, bulletin boards, and artwork hung up. The students’ desks were put into four groups of five desks. This arrangement emphasized group work and encouraged students to work together during many in-class activities. The overall classroom climate was warm and inviting, and encouraged a comfortable feel for the students.

            The rapport that Ms. P exhibited with the students was one of respect. The students were expected to respect her and thus, in return, knew that they would get respect from her. She was very warm with them encouraging and pushing them toward success, but would also use authority when students acted out. Ms. P used mostly indirect influence with the students. She used praise and encouragement, frequently asked students for their opinions and feelings, and continually asked students open-ended questions.

            Ms. P used various instructional techniques in the classroom. One of the main ways she taught was through modeling. When giving the students a new subject or idea, she would first show them using the board, a visual or through her own speech. An example of modeling was helping teach a reading lesson. To help the students learn visually about the reading, Ms. P had them make pop-up books. I made one first to model how the book was supposed to look. The students were then encouraged to look at the model if they had questions. When teaching about adding double digit numbers, Ms. P first gave an example problem on the board, showing the necessary steps to add the numbers. Group work was another main instructional technique used by Ms. P. I observed this in math and spelling. Groups were told to work together to write sentences or figure out problems. Most of the group work was group discovery or constructivism; the students did hands-on activities enabling them to come up with their own ideas or solutions. The discovery type of learning helped students learn to cooperate in addition to learning about the activity they were doing.

            Ms. P used various forms of motivation for the students. I frequently observed motivation by verbal reinforcement. For example, she would say to the class, “I like the way Josefina is sitting quietly at her desk” or “I like the way Jeremy is ready to do his math homework.” This form of motivation encouraged the other students to act like their classmates and also reinforced positive behaviors. Another form of motivation was allowing students to do individual projects. Students who were ahead of the class with homework or those students who may not have needed the group explanation of certain subjects were allowed to do their own individual project. When I was there, I assisted three students in working on illustrations for their self-written stories. This motivated the students to do well in their classroom work so they could do fun, extra projects. The type of motivation used was a personal motivation for the students, and individually they were able to excel. Ms. P’s personality in the classroom played a large part in motivation for the students. Her enthusiasm to teach and her expectations for the students helped motivate all of them. She expected all of the students to succeed and encouraged those that struggled.

            The type of classroom management and discipline was very effective. In the front of the classroom was a list of rules that had been made by the students and Ms. P the first day of class. Ms. P and the students signed it, and it was laminated hanging on the wall. It was visually there for the students to see. The discipline plan was also very efficient. In the morning, Ms. P put small paper tickets on the students’ desks. They got four tickets for clean desks and turned in homework, three tickets for messy desks and/or no homework turned in, and 2 tickets for messy desk and no homework turned in. During the day, if the students acted up or was inappropriate in someway, all Ms. P said was, “Bring me a ticket.” At the end of the day the amount of tickets left was recorded in their assignment notebook for their parents to see. Three or four tickets left also received a sticker. At the end of the week five students’ tickets were drawn from the ticket bucket and prizes were given. Ms. P and the students had previously discussed chance and probability, relating it to having a better chance of receiving a prize if you have more tickets in the bucket. This form of assertive discipline was very effective. It gave the children and the parents a visual account of how they were doing in class. The students were not given verbal warnings, they were expected to know how to act and their warning system was tracked through the tickets. This system proved to be very well-liked by both the students and Ms. P.

            During my interview with Ms. P, I concentrated on her feelings about teaching, her philosophy of teaching and how to go about teaching. I asked her about many areas of the teaching professions, what worked best and what did not. I asked her about the types of models or theories that she uses in the classroom. Ms. P said she and other teachers at Risen Christ used a variety of models. One of the main theories that she used was Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. She said she liked that it involved many different types of intelligences, and she liked to embrace those intelligences in her students. She also used a very holistic type of teaching, concentrating on the students’ emotions, experiences and thoughts.

            The type of teaching and teaching techniques that Ms. P said she used was mostly student driven. She said that teaching using the individual students as a guide was the most important part of planning how she would teach. Making connections with their life and life experiences and giving them material that will serve them in the future was the type of material she taught. She said that challenging the students at their own level and pushing them slightly beyond their level helped keep them motivated. Her favorite types of teaching techniques were cooperative groups, using these groups to help motivate each other and keep students on task. She also liked using student driven work and giving the students choices for what they wanted to do. As I previously mentioned, many of the students choose individual projects to work on, and this encouraged motivation.

            Ms. P felt that there were many factors that went into an environment that helped students learn best. One of the most important factors was safety and comfort. She said that the students needed to feel safe in the classroom and school; many were coming from homes that did not provide this level of safety, so it was an important factor in helping the students thrive in their learning. She said that for children to learn best they also had to feel represented. They needed to feel that they were represented both culturally, in books, and literature read in the classroom.

            Teaching diverse learners was an area that was a vital matter for Ms. P’s class. She said that using Gardner’s intelligences played an important role in the classroom. Combining language, writing, art, music and kinesthetics into the lesson plans gives each student a chance to excel in certain areas. Ms. P said that putting students into cooperative groups breaks them into different learning style categories. Again, Ms. P uses student-driven work by giving students choices on the type of work they would like to do.

            Diversity and multiculturalism played a huge part in the daily teaching done at Risen Christ. There were various events that went on in the classroom and the entire school involved various multi-cultural activities.  During my time at Risen Christ, the big celebration going on was Black History Month. In Ms. P’s class each of the students researched and wrote a short paper about an important African-American person. The whole school also participated in the celebration; while I was there, there was a prayer service and speaker honoring Black History Month. Other multi-cultural topics that are looked at in the classroom are women’s history, holiday celebrations (such as, Cinco de Mayo and Day of the Dead), and other aspects of different cultures. Ms. P said that it was important to embrace the different cultural characteristics of the many cultures represented at Risen Christ. In the classroom the diversity is seen each day through the books read, topics discussed and experiences from the students.

            Motivation was an important topic for Ms. P. She said that usefulness and interest was the important aspect of motivation. If the students did not find relevance in the topic or did not see themselves interested in it, they were not motivated to learn it. She said that every chance she could, she made sure to explain how what they were learning was useful. The importance of the subjects and material being interesting was also an important part of motivation. Ms. P tried to touch on the students’ interests while choosing lesson plans, books and materials for the classroom. According to Ms. P, the last important portion of motivation was making sure the material and work was challenging enough for each of the students. As I previously mentioned, advanced individual work was a central idea in the classroom. Letting students work ahead of others or just adding or subtracting work for students allowed them to feel challenged, thus motivating them to work towards the next level. Volunteers, small groups and learning centers played a large part in helping the classroom split into many levels. There are many volunteers who take aside individuals and/or small groups to work separately. Ms. P felt that all of these types of motivation are critical to the learning success of the students in her class.

            As stated in the observation section, the type of discipline system was very effective. There are some other types of discipline that Ms. P said she involved in her classroom. She said that rewards and bribes worked when used sporadically. Encouraging positive behaviors and then rewarding them is something that still works at this young age. A discipline plan that Ms. P said she found very effective was a behavior plan. This was used with individual children that exhibited negative behaviors. Ms. P and the student looked at one particular behavior, for example, not raising their hand. Ms. P and the student then made a plan about how to address this. They would then tally the amount of times the student succeeded in doing or not doing the behavior. The student could then look at how well they succeeded in changing the negative behavior. They were then reinforced in some way. Ms. P also verbally challenged students’ behavior. She would say to the student, “I challenge you to . . .” and then add in the behavior. This was a verbal way of reminding the student how to act, but would also put positive pressure on the student to behave. Ms. P said that one of the most important things to do when it came to discipline is to keep the parents informed. She is continually checking in with the parents about certain behaviors and working with the parents to correct negative behaviors. Ms. P said that her type of discipline seems to be working and she will stick with this plan until a change would need to take place.

            Overall, Ms. P employed a very humanistic teaching model into the classroom. She concentrated on not only teaching the students in academic areas, but also fostering their emotions, experiences and social behaviors. She felt that they could be trusted to work independently and be given choices of what and how they should learn. She was very adamant about students needing relevance in order to learn the material. Ms. P felt that if the students did not care or see the relevance to their life, they would have no motivation to learn.

            I enjoyed my time at Risen Christ in Ms. P’s room. The students were very welcoming and warm to me and I instantly felt attached to them. Through this experience, I realized that I may someday like to work in a school like this; I felt that these students needed so much love and drive to help them succeed. This experience helped me grow both personally and professionally and I will not forget it.